I'm not really sure what this has to do with political correctness. Do you
honestly think there are people offended if birds are referred to without
specifically labelling "bird" after their name? It just seems like an
attempt to make it clearer what sort of animal they're talking about to me,
which is good an example of good communication skills. You gain nothing by
being only accessible to people with a knowledge of birds.
Jeremy
On 25 September 2014 10:15, Peter Shute <> wrote:
> There might be more to it than adding clarity. Some people seem to like to
> do it in normal speech with some common bird names that most people would
> know are birds. E.g. jay bird, cuckoo bird.
>
> Peter Shute
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Birding-Aus
> > On Behalf Of
> > Philip Veerman
> > Sent: Thursday, 25 September 2014 10:00 AM
> > To:
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] FW: Bird tautology
> >
> > Yes but does it matter a lot? It is to aid communication for
> > those who do not know automatically that tern and the others
> > you mention already are bird names. Some of the names are too
> > short and obscure without a qualifier. Why should anyone who
> > doesn't happen to know, think official names like Redthroat
> > is a bird or Luzon Bleeding Heart, that isn't even given a
> > useful name like Luzon Bleeding Heart Pigeon. But it would
> > surely be hypocrisy to be too critical on this as we also use
> > "bird" as part of many official
> > names: lyrebird, butcherbird, bowerbird, antbird, grassbird, bird of
> > paradise, etc. What is really strange is that the same
> > situation is used
> > for so many frogs and fish (maybe more than not), but as far
> > as I know, it is never used for any mammal. We never get Red
> > Fox Mammal, Phascogale Mammal, Echidna Mammal, Blue Whale
> > Mammal, etc.
> >
> > Philip
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Birding-Aus
> > On Behalf Of
> > Neil Cheshire
> > Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2014 7:41 PM
> > To:
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] Bird tautology
> >
> >
> > Has anyone else noticed the annoying trend of adding the word
> > 'bird' or 'birds' to common bird names such as tern,
> > cormorant etc. This evening's introduction to 'Wild Britain'
> > mentions "nightjar birds" I have even seen it in a circular
> > from the South Australian Dept. of Environment and Natural
> > Resources which referred to "little tern birds". There
> > appears to be cultural cringe/PC that does not want to offend
> > or bewilder anyone who may be unaware that a tern, cormorant
> > etc is in fact a bird! End of rant
> >
> > Neil Cheshire
> > Encounter Bay,
> > South Australia.
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